


The Way of The Rift Mage

by jenny_of_oldstones



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M, Mages (Dragon Age), Rift Magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-09-28 07:52:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17178851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenny_of_oldstones/pseuds/jenny_of_oldstones
Summary: "The study of rifts is a recent phenomenon, but one that has almost unlimited potential. The rifts, and with them the Veil, represent the very fabric of the world. Those who would master rifts must reconcile their knowledge of magic with how the rifts operate. Each rift must be dissected and studied, and from that accumulation of information, a new college of magical study will be born."A series of vignettes exploring the specialization of one Inquisitor Trevelyan.





	1. Chapter 1

“You wish to specialize in what?” said Josephine.

The Inquisitor sat in an armchair in front of the fireplace in her study. He had a boot kicked up on one knee and reports spread across his lap. Josephine sat at her own desk, which was likewise awash in papers. 

“Rift Magic,” said the Inquisitor. “It’s quite new.”

“I have certainly never heard of it,” said Josephine.

“Hm.”

Josephine narrowed her eyes. That “hm” was the sound the Inquisitor made whenever Josephine made any comment about magic. The Inquisitor was a friend, a dear friend, but he had a way of making outright scorn feel more polite than that little “hm.”

“Is there a particular reason you wish to study this school?” she asked.

“Several reasons,” said Trevelyan.

“I am more than capable of understanding them.”

Treveyan picked up his teacup from where it was balanced on the arm of the chair and took a sip. 

Josephine sighed. She had spent weeks looking into suitable teachers for the Inquisitor as he trained in the higher levels of magic. She had contacted the necromancers of the Grand Necropolis, the Academy of Knight-Enchanters in Val Royeaux, and many other magical fraternities known to be in good social standing that were more than capable of fulfilling the esteemed position of tutor to the Herald. All for nothing, apparently. 

A sudden tripwire snagged in her mind.

“Inquisitor,” she said. “From where did you say this Rift Magic originated?”

“I didn’t.”

The alarm began to ring louder. “It occurs to me that, as limited as my understanding of the arcane arts are, I would have heard of a new school being developed from my sources within the Circle—”

Trevelyan sipped his tea.

“You are learning from the apostates,” said Josephine. “Aren’t you?”

“From my colleagues, yes.”

“The Mage Collective.” 

“Yes.”

“The apostates who are, to this day, in open defiance of the Chantry?”

“The same.”

Josephine heard carnival music playing in her head. For a moment, the rug under her chair seemed to spin.

“The Collective has been conducting its own investigation into the phenomena of the rifts,” said Trevelyan. “They have graciously agreed to share their findings and provide me an instructor in Rift Magic. In exchange—”

Trevelyan lifted a sheaf of papers from his knee and set it on Josephine's desk.

“I negotiated on our behalf,” he said. “Their demands are reasonable.”

“Inquisitor, you—” 

The blood was hot under Josephine’s face. She forced herself to breathe until the heat receded. Trevelyan had never been anything but honest with her about who and what he was. He was an apostate, a wanted outlaw under several names, and the man who had brought the mage rebellion to the Inquisition’s doorstep. She was not surprised at all.

“I will need to find a way to embellish this,” she said, picking up the papers. “People will ask.”

“You could tell them the truth.”

“They will arrive at that without my help,” said Josephine. “My duty is to provide you plausible deniability if nothing else, seeing how little you trust me in certain matters.”

The bitterness in her voice was bold of her, and Trevelyan raised an eyebrow in barest acknowledgement.

“At least tell me this Rift Magic is safe,” she said.

“Hm,” said Trevelyan.

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Honestly, you couldn’t have just picked necromancy?” asked Dorian.

Trevelyan stood in front of the mirror, applying powder to his neck and face. He was flushed from the tips of his ears to the middle of his chest with sticky red bite marks all over his shoulders.

“I could never stomach meddling with corpses,” said Trevelyan.

“You’d get over it.” Dorian was sprawled in the middle of the Inquisitor’s bed, awash in the thoroughly debauched sheets. His cock and balls were still throbbing with mildly pleasurable after-shocks, having shrunken meekly back into their nest of pubic hair. “Think of all the private tutoring sessions! You, the arrogant but eager-to-please pupil, and me, the indulgent, but firmly demanding teacher.”

“I don’t think I’d learn much magic that way,” said Trevelyan.

“You would if I was teaching you,” said Dorian. “I’m very good at multitasking.”

As Dorian lay there, watching Trevelyan reapply his public face and hide the evidence of their lovemaking, his mood began to drop.

He really had hoped Trevelyan would choose necromancy as his specialization. They rarely had time together as it was, and some part of him, the insecure, tender part of him that longed for more, really had wanted to become Trevelyan’s tutor. It surprised him, how deep his disappointment ran. 

“Didn’t you want to spend more time together?” asked Dorian.

“I do.” Trevelyan set the brush down and slapped his cheeks a few times. “But this was a practical consideration. I don’t like being ignorant about my own magic. If this Rift Magic can better help me to understand how the Anchor works, I can’t pass that up.” 

“I see.”

Dorian felt his mood bottom out. He suddenly wished he was alone back in his room, where he could forget about his famous lover for a few hours. He was so absorbed in staring at the creases in the sheets, that it took him a moment to realize Trevelyan was watching him in the mirror.

“Dorian,” he said. “You know I adore you, right?”

Dorian huffed and threw an arm over his eyes. “I suppose you can’t have dreadful taste in everything.” 

“You’re the only person in this castle I can really talk to,” said Trevelyan. “Everyone else is afraid of me, even if they never say so.”

“Oh stop,” said Dorian, rolling over.

“It’s true. And that’s why I’m going to share with you everything I learn in my training. It'll be like you're there with me."  

It crushed him a little, how Trevelyan could so thoroughly bandage over a hurt without ever addressing what had caused the hurt in the first place. Dorian may have been a spoiled child who only wanted more of his attention, but that didn’t change how he felt.

“And your little friends, the Mage Collective, they’re not going to mind you sharing?” asked Dorian, changing direction.

“I can't imagine why they would.”

“You’ll have to explain them again to me someday,” said Dorian. “You’ve told me at least six times and I’m still confused.”

“They’re a shadow fraternity of apostates who want to bring down the Chantry and liberate magekind from the shackles of orthodoxy.”

“Sounds like a fun bunch. And you used to be one of them?”

“I am one of them.”

“The same way Bull is still a Ben-Hasarath?”

“More or less.”

“Well. Just promise me you’ll be careful," said Dorian.

“I’ll try. I’m meeting with an agent tomorrow. He’s going to tell me all about this new tutor of mine.”

“Do I get to meet him?”

“No. He’ll probably slip up behind me from the shadows and whisper the whole thing in my ear.”

Dorain hummed. His mood, in the way it often did after sex, suddenly hit bottom and kicked off again, floating back into the warm waters near the surface. His cock, nestled warm and tender against his scrotum, found its second wind, and heartily began to pulse.

“Come here,” he growled.

Trevelyan flicked him a glance in the mirror.

“Crispin,” he said.

Trevelyan did not answer.

“Jack.”

That won him another glance, this one heated.

Dorian lurched off the bed and went to stand beside Trevelyan in the mirror. Trevelyan's body was lean and scarred- every inch hewn to survive in the wilderness. Dorian grew hard immediately. 

He spun Trevelyan around and clasped him to him.

“You’re going to get me in trouble,” Trevelyan whispered.

“I always do,” said Dorian, sliding a hand between his buttocks, seeking out that warm, tender part of him that always made Trevelyan sigh and wilt against him.

 _And as long as it keeps you interested in me, I always will,_ he thought.


	3. Chapter 3

Inquisitor Trevelyan had gone by many names in his life.

In Tantervale, he had been called Jack Candle. In the taverns of Antiva City, he had been known as Half-Jack and Jack Smoke. During the rebellion, he had been Cousin Jack, Bastard Jack, Dead Man Jack, Skinny-Dick Jack, and Jack-of-the-Fishes.

When he had told Leliana and Josephine to just call him Jack, they had both glowered at him.

“Oh, Orlais will love that,” said Leliana. “Our Herald, the vagrant without a surname.”

“Do you have any cousins whose lineage we might trace?” Josephine asked.

He had given them a vague answer, and Josephine, bless her, had found a member of one of the lower branches of House Trevelyan that had gone missing in the jungles of Seheron a decade earlier. The missing man wouldn’t mind them borrowing his name, and so Jack had become Crispin "Jack" Trevelyan III. Later, he was Inquisitor Trevelyan, or Trevelyan to his friends.

He wore the name the same way he had any other in his life—like a cloak to shrug on and off when the weather changed.

 

* * *

 

Trevelyan sat on a bench in the Skyhold gardens, smoking a pipe. The pipe was three times longer than a pipe needed to be, and Trevelyan liked it that way. He balanced the bowl in his hand and balanced his hand on his knee, squinting in the sun as it burned the top of his bald head. 

The people strolling through the garden were the same as they were at every hour. There were courtiers taking tea in the verandah, servants napping in the grass, and children playing under the watchful eyes of nannies. Every now and then someone would acknowledge the Inquisitor with a bow or a curtsy and bid him good morning.

As the sun rose higher, the garden slowly cleared out. The people filed inside the great hall seeking shade and an early lunch. When the garden was all but empty, a man with long, black hair peeled himself from the shadows of an ivy-covered wall and sat down beside the Inquisitor.

“This is the dossier you requested,” said the man in a heavy Orlesian accent, holding out a scroll. 

Trevelyan broke the seal. "Your Trainer’? That’s really the name the Collective gave her?”

“It is the name she chose for herself,” said the Orlesian. “She has some mental deficiencies. You may find her to be peculiar.”

“Peculiar” was one way to put it. The woman, according to her dossier, had been part of one of the Mage Collective’s research teams, specifically the one organized to investigate the nature of the rifts. She was the sole survivor of that team, and had paid a terrible price for her work. She was also the closest thing the Collective had to an expert on Rift Magic and thus was the mage assigned to be the Inquisitor's teacher.

“We understand that your ambassador reached out to the Circle to find you a tutor," said the Orlesian. "We are pleased that you trusted us instead. It sends a strong message that the Inquisition continues to work with the Collective." 

"Lady Montilyet answers to me, not the other way around. There was never cause for concern."  Trevelyan scanned the dossier again, then rerolled it. "When will 'Your Trainer' be arriving?" 

"Within the week. We will contact your people in Redcliffe to escort her here. There is, however, one more condition we would like to add to the terms of her contract."

"Oh?"

"'Your Trainer' is an invaluable asset to the Collective. She is the only living master of Rift Magic that we have, and her ability to continue her research is paramount to our interests."

Trevelyan studied him. Like his own face, the Orlesian's gave nothing away.

"In order to ensure her safety, we must insist that you allow additional Collective agents to accompany her while she stays at Skyhold. They will attend to her needs and safety."

"How polite of your to inform me of this beforehand, rather than simply imbedding your people in my staff."

"It is a courtesy," said the Orlesian.

"Do you really think I would ever allow an agent of the Collective to come to harm in my castle?"

"You are neither all powerful nor all-seeing, Inquisitor."

"Let me put it another way. Is the Collective's way of telling me that it sees me as a threat?" 

"It is not personal."

"Isn't it?"  

The Orlesian studied him with dark eyes. "'While you have you guided the Inquisition along the path toward mage liberation, not everyone within your organization shares that goal. We want to believe in your dedication, but recognize that you are as tractable as any other man."    

“Are you trying to warn me about something?”

"I am only trying to say that we respect the difficulty of your position. We hope, in return, you will understand our caution in dealing with the Inquisition. We do not trade in trust. We trade in results. You were one of us once, and now you are not. We cannot hope to know your mind.”

Trevelyan blew smoke around his pipe. The statement was not unexpected. The Orlesian was right. He was the Inquisitor now, and the Inquisitor was a dangerous man. The Collective needed to protect itself in the event he failed in his promises to them. 

It did not matter that he had sacrificed everything he loved in service to their cause. It did not matter that he had given them years of suffering that would never be rewarded or repaid. The only thing that mattered that the Collective survive, and that meant trusting in nothing and no one but the mission. It was difficult not to feel stung as he was increasingly shut out of their confidence, but that was the Collective in a nutshell: you were only valuable to them so long as they could quickly and easily discard you. 

“Tell me something,” said Trevelyan. “This Rift Magic research—I'd never heard of it until a few weeks ago. Was there a reason for that?”

The Orlesian gazed out over the garden. “I don’t know much about it. It was a very secretive study.  Much of it was kept from anyone who was not part of the research team. Since Your Trainer is the only one left, you will have to ask her.”

Trevelyan took the pipe out of his mouth and wiped it on his shirtsleeve. He offered it to the Orlesian, who stared at it.

“Don’t worry, it won't kill you," said Trevelyan.

The Orlesian tentatively took it. Giving the bowl a sniff, he stuck the stem delicately between his lips.

“Oh.” He coughed. “That’s rich.”

“Isn’t it?”

The Orlesian pulled deeper on pipe. He held the smoke in his mouth and then let it seethe out between his teeth.

“Does it have a name?” asked the Orlesian.

“It’s called "rum weed." We can pull some leaves from the garden for you, if you like.”

The Orlesian fingered the pipe. He was a man in his early thirties, with bags under his eyes and a long face like a sad donkey. There was something vaguely familiar about him. For Trevelyan, who at times felt he knew every Circle mage and apostate in the south, the recognition was maddening.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” said the Orlesian.

“Not at all.” Trevelyan took the pipe back and tapped the bowl on the bottom of his shoe. “Come on, we’ll find you a tin.”

 

* * *

 

After filling a jar with leaves from the garden, Trevelyan escorted the Orlesian back to the barn where his horse was saddled. The yard was empty, and Orlesian took his time tucking the jar into his saddlebag. 

“I have a confession to make,” said the Orlesian.

"Oh dear."

"Be serious. I'm about to tell you something you're not supposed to know."

Trevelyan leaned against a wooden beam. 

“Your Trainer is the only survivor of the rift experiments. However, she was never told the true purpose of the study. There have been rumors among people I trust that the study served a secondary purpose. There were apparently a lot of hopes riding on it." 

“What kind of hopes?”

“I don’t know,” said the Orlesian. “It’s not my area. But I do know there are a lot of people who will be watching your training your interest, and it has something to do with that." He pointed to Trevelyan’s left hand.

Trevelyan, unable to help himself, curled his fingers around the Anchor.

“I didn’t want to leave without telling you that,” said the Orlesian. "I agree with the Collective's caution with you, but I disagree that you should be kept completely in the dark. Rest assured, you still have friends on the inside." 

Now this was an unusual display of warmth. The man’s face was still irritatingly familiar.

“I’m sorry, but have we met before?” Trevelyan asked.

“It was about ten years ago. We worked together in Val Chevin.”

Oh.

Trevelyan remembered now. There had been a Templar at the Val Chevin Circle who had needed to be removed. It had been an easy enough job, and after it was done Trevelyan had returned to a nearby tavern with the other Collective mages for a drink. He had taken one of them upstairs—a young man with a long, sad face.

“You grew your hair out,” said Trevelyan.

“I was Jack-of-the-Eaves on that job. Do you recall what your name was?”

“No idea.”

“It was Jack Freckle. I remember, because you had two right here.”

The Orlesian pressed a gloved finger to a spot behind Trevelyan’s ear.

“You have a better memory than I do,” said Trevelyan.

“I never forget a name, or a smug face.” The Orlesian rubbed Trevelyan’s ear between thumb and forefinger, then gave him a soft swat on the cheek. “The same can’t be said for Your Trainer. Try to be gentle with her.”

“Only if she’s gentle with me,” said Trevelyan, and watched his fellow agent ride out of Skyhold, until he was a dot disappearing down the mountain.


End file.
